The Criterion Collection restores cinema that holds cultural and historical importance, past and present. Popular classics like Caesar and Cleopatra, The Breakfast Club, and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel are obvious, fan-favorite choices that have earned their place in the collection. Yet the Criterion Collection goes beyond the basics, too, and restores more off-the-wall films that would perhaps have been lost to time or obscurity.
Some films slip under the radar because their dark comedy doesn’t reach a vast audience. Sometimes their quiet romances take time and investment from the viewer. But they’re worth watching for their unique perspectives and cross-genre experimentation.
10 Portrait of a Lady on Fire
The slow-burn pacing of Portrait of a Lady on Fire can be daunting, but it’s a feature, not a bug. The film’s slow, contemplative progression reflects both the budding emotions of the central couple and the nature of art and creation. Everything about this movie is romantic: the windswept seaside setting, the painter and model romance premise, and the 18th-century gowns.
The film explores popular themes: humanity versus society, religion versus freedom, art and love, but it does so in a way that’s fresh and visually stunning. The film’s been critiqued as boring, but though it is quiet and heavy with symbolism, it could never be boring.
9 La Belle Et La Bête
Of all the Beauty and the Beast renditions, Cocteau’s black and white masterpiece is worth revisiting. The Art Nouveau set design and simple practical effect choices create a fairy tale castle that’s both haunting and beautiful. The film is based on an extended version of the fairy tale penned by a woman folklorist, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.
The Disney version, with its brat-prince-turned-mean-beast, is so synonymous with the fairy tale itself that audiences often forget that the Beast was kind to Belle from the very beginning in many versions of the folktale. Cocteau’s film Beast is gentlemanly and sensitive to Belle from the very start, making their romance all the more believable.
8 The Daytrippers
Dark comedies can be hit or miss, and though The Daytrippers has lukewarm ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, the hidden gem from the ’90s has a decided screwball appeal. While cleaning her house, Eliza discovers a love letter written to her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, and she retreats to her strange but lovable family. The eccentric group embarks on an odyssey across Long Island with her.
Daytrippers takes a heartbreaking concept like betrayal in marriage and brings a measure of levity to it. It shows that the possible end of a marriage doesn’t mean the end of close relationships and connections. Since the plot is simple and takes place over a single day, it gives plenty of room for the complex, quirky characters to shine.
7 I Married a Witch
No one makes for a perfect, off-beat romantic lead like an immortal witch with a grudge, which Veronica Lake plays to vampy perfection in I Married a Witch. It takes the pulp paperback that inspired it, The Passionate Witch, and elevates the material. The 1942 comedy inspired the popular series, Bewitched, though now it’s not quite known to contemporary audiences.
I Married a Witchhas all the Halloween basics: a Massachusetts setting, a colonial witch-burning flashback, black cats, witches rising from the grave, a love spell, and a vengeful heroine in a conical hat. Though often overshadowed by its following inspirations, I Married a Witch stands the test of time. It’s certain to conjure plenty of kitschy, feel-good Halloween vibes.
6 Mystery Train
Mystery Train is an anthology of three comedy-drama stories, occurring all on the same night in Tennessee. Memphis and the ghost of Elvis Presley are the common threads of each character’s story. Though Mystery Train did well upon its initial release in 1989, it may have receded into the mists after more recent Elvis Presley-related film releases.
The anthology film’s strength is its moody yet cool atmosphere. Often an anthology movie will have at least one weaker storyline, but this film dodges that, with each story being full and fleshed-out. Fans of ironic, deadpan humor and faded Americana (without meandering into moroseness too much) will find something to enjoy in Mystery Train.
5 The Decameron
The Decameron is an adaptation of a 14th-century Italian collection of folktales about ribald nuns, lovers, gardeners, and foolish husbands. Decameron is worth watching for its rich color palette alone. Despite the film’s bawdy tone and gross-out imagery, it looks like a moving, breathing Renaissance painting.
Nearly every folkloric trope is thrown into the pastiche. Still, director Pasolini combines these elements in such a thoughtful, humorous way that it forms a colorful landscape rather than a confusing mess. The costumes are a gorgeous mix of historical, fantasy, and 1970s runway. It fully embraces the off-beat and often dark themes in old-fashioned folk and fairy tales.
4 The Devil’s Backbone
Guillermo del Toro is known for his gothic ghost stories, like Crimson Peak, but The Devil’s Backbone is one of his hidden gems. Backbone weaves a ghost story with history, setting it against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. As is the case with many of del Toro’s films, the human aspect is the darkest part of the ghost story.
Man’s greed acts as a literal and figurative bomb in a schoolyard, and history will repeat itself if the present refuses to listen to it. The theme is as topical today as it was in 2001. The symbolism, interweaving subplots, and political commentary will stick with audiences long after they finish watching The Devil’s Backbone.
3 Polyester
Polyester is a 1980s John Waters comedy with middling reviews because it’s not meant for everyone. It satirizes themes still oft-discussed today: divorce, teen pregnancy, the religious right, and the pitfalls of the nuclear family in suburbia. And despite all these satirized topics, there’s still a tone of sincerity.
Any fans of John Waters or 1980s Ephemera will find something to giggle at in this campy fever dream of a movie. It’s like a love letter to the past that’s still relatable to modern audiences. The Criterion Collection even redistributed the scratch-n-sniff cards that originally came with the movie theater ticket for the full ’80s olfactory experience.
2 The Passion of Joan of Arc
Silent films aren’t exactly a popular movie night choice, but The Passion of Joan of Arc is a movie that everyone should watch at least once in their life. Joan of Arc’s trial in England is one of history’s most prominent public trials. The 1928 black and white film is notably faithful to the 15th-century historical accounts.
Though historically faithful, the film doesn’t shy away from vivid emotional depiction and poignant artistic imagery. The Passion does so much with so little. Falconetti’s performance as France’s savior was so heartrendingly convincing that 1920s audiences worried about the actress’ health.
1 Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens is a documentary about a mother and daughter duo, Big and Little Edie Beale, who are cousins to Jackie Onassis. They come from a well-to-do Hampton family and live in a dilapidated house covered by a wall garden fit for hiding a Sleeping Beauty or two.
Eccentric isn’t quite a strong enough word to describe the Edies, yet strange would be unkind. They are two time capsules who trill to each other in trans-Atlantic accents, recollect old dance card memories, pick petty fights, and hum popular tunes from their girlhoods. Little Edie is a fashion plate who makes outfits from attic finds and dances through her poky hallways. Every line that comes from her and her mother is quotable.